Under the Sun
by Imadra Blue
Summary: In a fantasy re-envisioning of the world of Naruto, Yamato searches for his lost teammates, Sakura and Sai, in a corrupt city filled with slavery and injustice. In finding them, however, he soon learns new possibilities for his rare magic and encounters a familiar enemy. Gen and Yamato/Sai pre-slash.


**Characters:** Yamato, Sakura, Sai  
**Pairings:** Yamato/Sai (Pre-slash)  
**Beta-Reader:** Furiosity, a true heroine who did a fantastic job helping me make this acceptable for submission. Any and all flaws that remain are my own.  
**Notes:** Written for Megyal in Naruto Fic Festival 2013. Megyal, you said you liked sci-fi/fantasy AUs, Yamato, Sai, and Sakura, so I worked with those prompts. This is an alternate universe, re-envisioning the Naruto world as a Western magic-based fantasy world similar to "Dungeons & Dragons" with job classes like warriors and mages (no knowledge of another canon required, just note it's a fantasy-genre type world). The term "shinobi" now refers to people of the adventuring classes (warrior, priest, rogue, and mage) of Konohagakure, which remains its own separate society. Many things remain the same, though the tech aspect of the Naruto world has been removed (no more television or computers). New possibilities, however, open with the introduction of fantasy-genre magic. This changes the outcome with the battle with Pain, notably, as you will find. The status of certain other characters also changes, though I was only able to suggest this, as this story's focus is on Yamato, Sakura, and Sai.

...

The sun burned mercilessly in the north. Not even the ocean breeze fluttering across the harbor could temper the sun's assault upon the city of Ranthia. The sailors and dock workers hardly seemed to notice the heat, lumbering about as if the weather was mild. They came from all the varieties of people found across the continent of Gant, dark and pale, but none appeared to be from Konohagakure. Yamato sighed and hefted his small bag of belongings. He had not seen one of his countrymen in months, not since he and Kakashi had split up to find survivors from their ruined village.

"Move it, _tracasta_!"

Yamato stepped aside just in time before a beefy man with a very pink neck rammed into him. The man glared at him as he stomped down the pier, his blond moustache bristling. Many foreigners called his people "_tracasta_," a rude term for forest-dwelling primitives. Once, a great forest had surrounded Konohagakure, but Yamato's people had never been primitives. They had traditions and inventions these foreign barbarians could only dream of, from pipes that brought water to every home to the fact that the people of Konohagakure abhorred slavery. Yamato glanced behind him at the ship he had sailed in on, a vessel built from wood half-ready to rot to pieces right there in dock, and then at the receding back of the beefy man. It took him a moment to convince himself it was not worth the risk of arrest just to assuage his honor. He'd only draw unwanted attention to himself.

Nestled tightly along the harbor were Ranthia's dark, worn lower districts. Yamato strode into the area, his nose wrinkling. Konohagakure never had areas that smelled of garbage and human waste. It had been a clean village, built from stone and wood. The paths had twisted in labyrinthine fashion, but one part of Konohagakure looked much like the other. There had been no lower districts; Konoha people took care of their poor. Now, the village was ash and rubble spread across a blasted plain, the only recognizable sign of it found in the carved faces of Hokage upon the mountainside. But they could rebuild; they _would_ rebuild.

Following the sounds of noisy crowds and clinking chains, Yamato entered the slave block. He had heard rumors about a fierce pink-haired girl arrested for trying to free a slave in Ranthia. Sometimes, prisoners were sold as slaves if it seemed they might fetch a good price. Yamato had already rescued three Konohagakure civilians that had been kidnapped and sold as slaves since Pain had destroyed their village. Enslaving a shinobi would be far more difficult than enslaving a civilian, but even shinobi had limits. At least they were alive. Naruto, in a bid to save them from Pain, scattered Konohagakure's people to the four corners of Gant with his wild magic. Mass teleportation to dangerous areas was immensely preferable to Pain's mass slaughter.

Yamato searched through the crowds for three hours, but saw no sign of any pink-haired girls amongst the huddle of miserable slaves. Most of those being sold were red-faced Kiwarians from the western shores of Gant, their blond hair shorn of traditional braids. Yamato wished he could have freed them, especially when one of the young boys began to cry, but he was one man, and he had a duty to find his lost people. If the rumored pink-haired girl was Sakura, he had to place priority on her. He could not risk himself on strangers. Yamato turned from them and headed down the trash-paved streets. As he drifted further through the lower districts, he considered where else he could look for the pink-haired girl.

"C-Captain," rasped a familiar voice above him.

Yamato glanced upward. A pale hand reached towards him, nails broken and packed with dirt, from one of the suspended cages where Ranthia left thieves and petty criminals to starve to death for all to see. Scraggly pink hair obscured most of a girl's face peering through the bars, save one bright green eye glittering down at him. Sakura. Yamato gasped and reached up, but her hand remained far out of reach.

"It's you," Sakura whispered.

Four guards in a nearby oil-stained shack turned to stare at Yamato, their steel armor glinting under the brutal Ranthian sun. He glanced at them, then back up at Sakura.

"Go." She withdrew her hand. "Come back after dark. There will be fewer."

Heart pounding, Yamato nodded once, then darted down a side alley. His breath grew short, and his thoughts raced. He only had to wait until night to free Sakura. He prayed she knew where more of their people had been taken.

…

At midnight, when Yamato arrived at the street lined with hanging cages, there were only two guards. Five minutes after he arrived, there were none. Inside the nearby guard shack, their bodies lay hunched over their mysterious foreign game board, their throats wrapped in the wood from their chairs, clawed hands frozen in futile attempt to free themselves. Yamato stood under Sakura's hanging cage and waved his hands at the wooden pole holding her cage, extending a thread of magic towards it. Within seconds, Yamato's magic bent the pole that held Sakura's cage so high above the streets and placed the cage upon the street as gently as a mother would her babe. Yamato directed the wood to yank open Sakura's cage door and reached inside to help her out.

Sakura's hands trembled, and dried blood caked her face and arms. She still wore the same outfit Yamato had last seen her in, months ago, now soiled and torn in places. Despite her condition, she smiled.

"Are you all right?" he murmured, glancing up and down the street to ensure no one had seen.

"Could be better. After they caught me—" She paused and breathed in Yamato's ear, her fingers curling around his upper arm. "—they poisoned me and left me in the cage to die."

"You're not dead," Yamato said, lifting her out of the cage. He quickly darted down an alleyway as Sakura sagged in his arms. After finding a few crates to hide behind, he leaned against a wall and glanced down at Sakura, swallowing hard. He had spent most of his childhood locked away in cages by Orochimaru. He understood how she must have felt, poisoned and left to die in her suspended cage.

"No." Sakura's smile grew wider. "Did you find Sai?"

"Sai? He's here?"

"I saw him being dragged off to a rich man's house. I tried to rescue him, but I was attacked by shinobi." She glanced up at Yamato, her smile fading. "Konohagakure shinobi. I don't know why. They turned me in to the authorities for trying to steal a slave."

Yamato frowned. "Why would our own people attack you, Sakura?"

"I don't know. I've been asking myself the same. I did not know them, though I recognized their faces," she whispered, eyes glistening.

"Perhaps Sai knows. If you tell me the house, I will save him and find out why you were betrayed."

Sakura nodded. "Bring me nettlewine and powdered stag antler, and I will help you. You cannot go alone. There are too many shinobi there."

Yamato nodded. "Let's find a safe place for you to recover." He took off down the alley, dodging guards by darting from shadow to shadow. After a few minutes, Sakura fell asleep in his arms.

…

It took more than nettlewine and powdered stag antler to restore Sakura's strength. She had not eaten in days, and Yamato had to help feed her until she was strong enough to hold the spoon. Her wounds from the battle she had lost when they'd arrested her had never been treated, so Yamato bought a poultice for the infection. She did not complain when he cleaned and bandaged her wounds. She slept for days, yet with each passing one, Yamato saw her strength return. A determination that he envied burned in her eyes. He had never been a man prone to passion, and passion was something Sakura had in spades.

"How did you even find me?" she whispered one afternoon, after eating her entire lunch without help.

Yamato looked up from the small wooden sculpture of Kakashi he had formed from the stained wooden floor of the inn. "I was in Hillstan, at a bar, and overheard Ranthian sailors talking about a wild pink-haired girl who had beaten half the guard before being arrested for trying to rescue a slave." He smiled. "I thought that it might be you, so I took the next boat here."

Sakura returned the smile and hugged her knees. "I found Sai by accident, when I wandered into Ranthia looking for a ship to send me home." She looked up. "How many of us were lost when Naruto used his wild magic?"

"More than half the village." Yamato dropped his gaze to the stained wooden floor of the inn. He hated this place, filthy and filled with a stale, sour smell. But the inn stood at the edge of town, and its owners asked no questions when he had entered their building holding Sakura in his arms. "Less than half that has been found."

"Did—did Naruto survive?"

"We think so. Kakashi is looking for him." Yamato forced a smile on his face. "We can find them both after we rescue Sai."

"So Kakashi is alive." Sakura nodded, seeming relieved. "And Lady Tsunade?"

"The Fifth Hokage was trapped in a dream world while trying to save the village from Pain. She had not yet awoken when I left. Shizune attends her."

Sakura closed her eyes, then opened them. "What about Ino?"

"With Chouji, looking for Asuma and Shikamaru."

"But Asuma died a year ago!"

"Or so we thought. Some of the first civilians we rescued reported seeing him in the east, and in Shikamaru's company. Ino and Chouji went to investigate the moment they heard."

"The world has lost its mind."

"Indeed."

Sakura fell silent, and stared out the window. Yamato glanced at it. In the distance, they could see the blue sea ripple beneath ships sailing towards Ranthia's port.

"We've quite the job ahead of us, don't we?" Sakura sighed. "Rescuing Sai, investigating the traitor shinobi, and then finding half the village."

Yamato studied her. Her eyes remained dry, and her shoulders were squared. She handled this all with a grim practicality unusual for someone her age. Both Chouji and Ino had wept when they realized how many were missing. "It is a daunting task, but focus on one thing at a time. Sai first."

"You're right. In two days, I should be ready," Sakura said, turning to Yamato.

Tapping his small wooden sculpture of Kakashi, Yamato reshaped it into a figure of Sai. "Good."

…

In two days' time, Sakura stood beside Yamato on a small hill overlooking the noble quarter as the sun set. Gleaming, gilded buildings huddled around the fat stone temple perched on Ranthia's largest hill. They waited for the sun to set and then set off into the noble's quarters, moving with shinobi speed and silence. Only one guard noticed their passing, and Sakura made quick work of him with a sharp blow to the head before his mouth fully opened. She was stronger than twenty men put together, a strength well-hidden in her slender form. Yamato had no doubt that she'd defeated half the guard before being arrested, as the Ranthian sailors had insisted. Together, Yamato and Sakura were mage and warrior, a partnership that had undone many enemies throughout Konohagakure's long history.

Crouching through shadows, Sakura led Yamato to a red-bricked building nearing the city gate. It stood four stories high, but a light only shone from one window. Sakura moved down a narrow alleyway that led to the side entrance. The guard never saw him before Yamato waved his hand and slid wooden panels around his neck, a winding branch that moved like a snake. The guard died soundlessly as Sakura and Yamato crept inside the house.

Yamato expected to find several more Ranthian guards inside, but he found none. The first two people he and Sakura encountered were Konohagakure shinobi, who turned to them. Yamato did not know their names, but he recognized their faces. Recognition did not soften their expressions, however, nor stay the shuriken they tossed at Yamato and Sakura.

"Why are you attacking us? We are Konoha shinobi, like you!" Yamato cried as he and Sakura dashed for cover behind a wall.

But the shinobi did not answer with anything but another brace of shurikens stapling the wall Yamato and Sakura crouched behind.

"We have to keep moving," Yamato said. "We need to find Sai, have him tell us what is going on, and then figure out what to do with them."

Sakura nodded, then turned to the wall, pulling back her fist. "Go!" she screamed, punching through their wall cover, sending splinters at their surprised attackers. "Find Sai!"

Yamato rushed up the stairs and found two more shinobi. But the stairs were made of wood, and with a single wave of Yamato's hand, they opened up to swallow the shinobi whole. He kept running until he hit the second floor. He only had time to create a wooden shield before a lightning spell crackled around him, leaving him with an armful of smoke and char. Before he could counter, Sakura dashed past him and into the fray, pink hair flying wildly.

"Keep going!" she roared.

With a quick prayer to their ancestors that Sakura would emerge victorious, Yamato dashed up to the third floor, knocking one attacking shinobi off the stairs with a fierce blow from a wooden fist drawn from the banister. His magic was the rarest of all, and few understood how to counter it. It gave him an advantage in battle beyond the average mage.

But it turned out that Yamato was not the only practitioner of rare magic in that house. Ink snakes slithered past his wooden tentacles on the landing for the third floor. He smashed one into liquid, but the other wrapped around his ankle and dragged him across the floor. His back stung, and the lamps blurred into racing lines of light. His surprised paralyzed him for a few moments.

Sai's black eyes stared down at him, as dull as a sleepwalker's. The flash of light off the side of Sai's raised kunai stirred Yamato to action, rolling aside as Sai brought the kunai down, snapping the ink snake around his ankles into two. Confusion left Yamato staggering as he stood, ink pooling around him.

"Sai?" he asked.

Sai did not respond with words, but with beasts given life from his paintings. His black hair hung in his face, grown long, and dark clothing clung to his lithe form. He was as silent as his ink monsters, staring blankly at Yamato as they charged.

But wood had form and substance that ink did not, offering Yamato a clear advantage. He shaped a nearby desk into a huge snake and sent it charging at Sai's monsters. Ink splattered as if it were blood.

"Sai!" Yamato cried. "Don't you recognize me?"

Sai offered no response, no explanation. All he offered were more ink monsters than Yamato could count. Blackness engulfed the room, drowning out the lamplight, slithering and sliding, threatening to drown Yamato.

Yamato knew a thing or two about darkness, from a time long ago, when he was not Yamato yet, just a small, helpless boy who lived in a cage. That nameless boy had known of monsters, and of the monsters that lived in men. He had seen both in Orochimaru. He had not been swallowed in darkness then, in the sewer laboratories where Orochimaru injected the rare magic of the First Hokage into children even younger than Yamato. He would not be swallowed by darkness now.

Wood burst from his palms, life springing from him like striking snakes. Never before had he created the wood he shaped. It branched out wildly, leaves unfurling, punching through the wet darkness of Sai's magic. Yamato felt his body warm, as if from a lover's touch. He burned with desire, a desire that created new life. After allowing himself one more brief moment to admire his creations, he focused on Sai.

Sai still gave no recognition, no explanation, as his ink monsters splattered into puddles. He stared at Yamato as though sleeping with his eyes open. Through the branches now wrapping around Sai's small body, Yamato sensed an enchantment of the mind at work. He did not know exactly how to dispel it. Such magic was the province of the Yamanaka Clan. His magic knew only of nature. But perhaps that was enough.

Infused with the power of the life still stretching from his palms, Yamato strode towards Sai, watching him struggle against the slithering tree branches that held him captive. Sai looked up, and Yamato leaned forward. Their lips met, and the warmth in Yamato's body burned fierce and hot as if a stoked fire. The life bursting from Yamato sparked through their kiss, and Sai blinked. Yamato's tree branches withered and died, their life flowing into the enchantment that held Sai's mind captive. Yamato could feel the foul magic ebb away, just as the life did from his tree branches. His palms were empty once again, but when he leaned back, Sai stared up at him with eyes far softer than the ones that had greeted Yamato.

Sai's brow furrowed after a moment. He had never seemed to understand emotions, for he had been raised to be an unquestioning murderer by Danzo, the Third Hokage's rival. Of all the shinobi Yamato had known, Sai was the most like him. A boy raised in darkness, caged by monsters. Sai touched Yamato's cheek. "You saved me," he whispered.

"A temporary condition easily rectified," said a cold voice behind Yamato.

Yamato spun around just in time to see Danzo, Sai's former mentor, bare a hideous arm filled with Uchiha eyes before the world felt light and inconsequential, and turned to blackness.

…

When Yamato woke, he found himself on his knees in a large, dank underground room. He could no longer hear the sound of Sakura fighting on the floor below, nor feel the entire house shaking from her fists. Cold metal wrapped around Yamato's wrists and ankles, chaining him to the stone wall behind him. He knew without trying that he could not cast magic now—the chains created a dead feeling in his body, the opposite of his magic. Another ink monster trembled beside him, but Yamato quickly realized it was only Sai's black hair, stirring. He had been chained to the wall as well. On the other side of the room, Sakura had also been chained, her pink hair cascading in front of her face. After a moment, Yamato noticed the black robes beside him. He glanced up.

Danzo glared down at him, half his face bandaged like the last time Yamato had seen him. The scars and folds of his face seemed harsher in the dark room. From Yamato's vantage point while chained to a wall, Danzo looked much like Orochimaru.

"I recall you. Orochimaru's little laboratory rat. You had joined the Third Hokage's pathetic ANBU group, hadn't you? Your mask was a cat, as I recall. I never did find out why," Danzo said, his voice reedy with apparent contempt.

Yamato ground his teeth. That mask meant more to him than Danzo deserved to know. His first ANBU commander had given him a rat's mask, a cruel joke that reminded him of Orochimaru. When Kakashi took over, he had taken that mask, snapped it in two, and handed Yamato a cat mask instead. Kakashi's faith had transformed him from prey into predator.

"Why have you betrayed us, Danzo?" Yamato asked. "We are your countrymen."

"No, you are all tools. Either you will be used, or you will be broken."

Yamato managed to twitch his arms, but the small effort exhausted him as much as training Naruto had. Sai seemed in a similar predicament, making only slight movements and then panting and sweating. Yamato stared at Danzo's robes pooling on the stone floor, wishing he had the power to use stone to swallow Danzo. "But why?"

"The answer to that question is long dead and buried. It no longer matters." Danzo clenched a fist. The Uchiha eyes embedded in his rotten arm, all bearing the red Sharingan, turned to study Yamato. Only foul magic, perhaps even fouler than Orichimaru's, could have produced such a monstrosity. "All that matters to you now is how you will serve me."

The Uchiha eyes blinked. Yamato could not even imagine how Danzo managed to come across all those eyes. The Uchiha clan had died out long ago, leaving behind only Sasuke and his traitor brother, Itachi. Neither had displayed the power to control people's minds, but these other eyes could know those spells and have taught Danzo their ways. Yamato wondered if he would become as empty as Sai when Danzo was through with him. Yamato glanced back at Sai and was struck by his expression. As cold and emotionless as Sai had always been, he seemed near tears now. A loud hum filled the room as magic built around Danzo's arm, glowing a soft white.

A flash of pink drew Yamato's gaze. Sakura had awoken, and she strained against her bonds, muscles fully tensed, veins throbbing. Her expression was one of obvious pain, her eyes filled with hatred as she glared at Danzo. What had been impossible for Yamato and Sai was not impossible for the apprentice of the Fifth Hokage, the strongest woman Yamato had ever met. The screech of Sakura's chains grew louder than the hum of magic, so Yamato sought to cover it by yelling.

"You treacherous bastard!" Yamato roared at full volume. "You are no better than Orochimaru! You're just some pathetic has-been grasping at power that doesn't belong to him!"

Danzo snarled, the magic in his Sharingan-embedded arm sparking a fierce red. Yamato felt his senses begin to drain, as if drugged. "How dare you speak to me like that, you—!" Danzo never finished his sentence, for Sakura burst free at that moment and swung her chains into the side of his head. With an audible _crack_, he collapsed to the floor, blood pooling around his head.

Sakura panted, chest heaving, staggering on her feet. She dropped to her knees by Yamato and pried his manacles open until he could pull his wrists free. "Thanks for the save," Yamato murmured, rubbing his wrists as Sakura moved to free Sai.

"Just returning the favor," she said, smiling wanly.

…

As soon as Yamato's magic returned, he built a small ship. They wasted no time boarding and escaping the city before the guard discovered what had happened with Danzo. The three of them sat on the deck and watched the shores of Ranthia recede into the distance as they sailed away. The sun left them exhausted and miserable, but anything was superior to remaining in Ranthia. Sakura's healing palm technique had already sped along all their recoveries, and Sai's ink birds had stolen food and brought it to them. The salty tang of the sea air was a welcome change from Ranthia's stench. Yamato had never been so glad to be done with a place.

Sai sat by Yamato, his body close enough that Yamato could feel the heat of his skin. Yamato did not mind the closeness. It made him feel as comfortably warm as he had when creating tree branches to save Sai in Ranthia. There seemed a new potential between him and Sai, one that sprung up as suddenly as Yamato's new power. Yamato studied the youth, wondering what he should do about this new warmth between them, if it was shared. He decided to ask during their next private moment.

"Do you think we'll find Kakashi and Naruto in the next city?" Sakura asked after a while, turning her face from the cool ocean spray to study Yamato. Sai also turned to Yamato, his gaze intense, obviously interested in the answer.

Yamato glanced down at his hands, the same hands that had managed to produce new life only hours ago. "I think anything is possible." He had found Sakura and Sai in Ranthia, but he seemed to have also found possibility itself.

The sun continued to mercilessly beat down, but it seemed more bearable the further they sailed from Ranthia.

_End._


End file.
